Catalogued 87 stories and found the confidence to share them with the world

I have known for 5 decades that I was living on a conveyor belt of never-ending trauma. Not one trauma that impacted me for 50 years, although that is true because it all started with a triple trauma event on my 13th birthday that killed my 13 year-old self; the famous American psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck in his internationally renowned book "The Road Less Travelled" writes that "abandonment of a child is the equivalent of death". I've known for a very long time that my story was extraordinary, but in the most cruel manner. Yet, here I am @ 64, having survived half a century of never-ending traumas, some very serious ones that happened to me as recently as last year. I've been told on 7 different occasions by first responders, ambulance, police and medical personnel, that it was a miracle that I was still alive after each incident. During all this, I developed an intense passion approximately 25 years ago to share my story, my survival and sometimes even the moments where I managed to thrive, with the world. I know my story is brutal, but it is not that uncommon. I have wanted so badly to share it, so that in doing so I might help as many people as possible understand the process of breaking free of the self imposed cages that trauma victims lock themselves up in, and to jailbreak them far quicker than I was able to do for myself. My problem was that as the traumas kept coming, so the story kept changing. Maybe that was a good reason to delay because I didn't know what the ending should look like, or maybe that was just an excuse to delay. But last year I realised the time it had come which is when I began signing up for multiple courses to prepare me to take my message out to the world and find an audience for whom it would be important. I knew that if I was going to do it, I want to do it well – at least to the very best of my abilities with nothing left on the table. That's when I came across Speaking & Influence and I knew it was pivotal to the skills I needed it for my mission and my vision. I was not wrong.

There are too many things that have changed in me during the four months of this course to name them all. Probably the most important is that as the weeks went by my old thoughts that I wasn't good enough to do this, that my story was insignificant except to me, began to lose credibility. I felt that me attempting to go public alone, through which ever channels are available and / or desirable to me (stage speaking, a YouTube channel, a podcast, workshops & courses and, something I've always had a passion for, writing books) was just setting myself up for more failure, for more trauma. Knowing that, and acting on that information, was by far the greatest gift I've ever given myself. Because it was totally true. It didn't take more than 4/6 weeks on the course for me to know just what a mistake that would've been.

So, with every passing week my belief system began to change. I studied carefully all of the experts that participated in the training. I also carefully watched all of my classmates. I came to the conclusion that I was no more or less worthy than any of them, but as students we only held two of the three ingredients essential for success in this industry. I did believe that I had some level of talent as I'm sure every class member has, otherwise they wouldn't be there, and I began to realise the extent and value of my stories, just as I'm sure all my classmates did even if they didn't believe it at the beginning. The third ingredient is perhaps the most important, because without it, the talent and the stories have nowhere to go. The third ingredient is the enormous amount of skill required to deliver stories and their lessons so well, and so powerfully, that they would achieve the maximum impact that they were meant to have. Talent I may been born with and hopefully I nurtured it well doing the few good times. The circumstances and the things that happened to me were totally out of my control, and are things that I would never wish on anybody else, not even my worst enemy, so I certainly didn't wish them upon me. But the third ingredient, the SKILL, that is something that can be LEARNED. And wow, I have to say I could never have anticipated just how far and deep this training would take me in order to develop the necessary skills so that I have the potential to ensure that whenever I speak, or whenever I write, I do it at a level that makes me unforgettable! I could never have anticipated that in order to get to that level. We would have to examine ourselves with such intimacy. Hearing numerous world class coaches telling us that the words that come out of our mouth contribute only 7% to influencing an audience was hard to digest. But as they unpacked the reality of how powerful the impact of body language is, and how powerful tone and timing is, I began to see the real picture. Our bodies are pretty large things to place in front of an audience and any part of our body could give us away in a millisecond if we are not authentic and fully aligned with what we're talking about. I could go on for ages about the effect of how much what we physically bring to the stage matters - eyes, smile, lips, posture, hands, clothes, to name just a few - or how the tone of our voice or the timing of when we decide to say a certain thing or not can completely change the impact of the very same words when they land.

Also, I was overwhelmed more by the vast number and severity of my stories that I was more afraid of how to mine them, organise them, and create a well constructed library that would be vast but could also be extraordinarily well organised so that I wouldn't drown in them. I would then have access to more lessons than I could possibly hope to teach. This process, and the process of how to structure different types of stories in different ways, gave me a profound sense of relief, and belief, that if I put my mind to it, this was a very manageable task, especially given the tools provided to us in the course. This was a bigger fear for me then actually speaking. And so since I now feel like I have control of this huge collection of stories and lessons that I need to work on, I also feel that I have the capacity and talent to do a half decent job of becoming a really good speaker and author. And it's cool to feel this way. To walk away with a level of confidence that, still needing many 100s of hours of work, is more than I've ever had before. These are the most important things I gained from the course. I could go on with many others, but these are at the heart of the matter.

Over the past few months, I have catalogued 87 stories and I have practiced 30 them within the story structures that Eric and Lisa Nichols have given us. I managed to extract the key lessons from each story, and I've worked out which stories and lessons might share the stage in a single talk. I don't know how far I am into my complete story bank, and I guess I won't for a long time because I'll continue to capture the stories and break them down and, as I've mentioned above, my well runs deep. All I know is that having over 80 stories, structured with lessons and format, with interchangeable parts that can be switched around as needed (and no doubt improve as they go out into the world and find their feet and feedback), makes it unequivocal that I follow through, find my own voice, and share what I have learnt with the people who need it most. Most importantly, I no longer doubt that these people exist. In fact quite the opposite, I know that their numbers are extremely high. It's now my responsibility to engage with them from my heart and soul, so that as many people as possible who would find what I have to say about recovery important, get to hear it. And any anxiety or fear that I have can no longer have a hold over me, because Eric and Lisa have made me understand, beyond any doubt, that the cost of me not sharing my stories would be far, far more damaging to the people who need to hear them, then the discomfort to me of overcoming my fears in sharing them. I leave the course totally excited for the future. I've also joined a Whatsapp group that has been started amongst our class members to keep the work going. It's a group that is growing and which will gather regularly to share experiences, to share storytelling practice, and to share our wins & our stumbles. And I also have Finer Minds, a safe place where I can share with the wonderful community that this course has created. This was not just a 'pop in and move on' kind of of course. This course created a family, and also gave us a platform where we can congregate us a family long after the course has ended.

I am totally committed to ongoing training and investing in myself. I'm often investing money I don't really have, but in the true spirit of believing in myself and knowing that at this stage of my life there is no room for a backward step, I'm doing whatever is possible. Probably the biggest upcoming investment that I'm making is the Lisa Nichols Retreat in Bali in April '27. And although Lisa is by no means cheap, I've included the VIP upgrade because of the extraordinary access it'll give me to Lisa. To me Eric and Lisa are at least 2 of the top 5 speakers in the world and having spent four months with Eric, an opportunity to spend 5 & 1/2 intensive days with Lisa and her team is impossible to pass up. Also, the retreat is 5 months away. By that stage I intend to have done a lot more work on myself, with the WhatsApp group, Finer Minds and live speaking, so I'll be 5 months further down the line in my growth, which will be the perfect time to attend her retreat.

In summary, doing this course has totally changed the trajectory of my life. Not because this isn't the direction that I always wanted. It is. The real difference between doing this course and not doing this course, is the difference between the prospect of me having any chance of making it a reality before the course was very fragile, whereas having done the course & being inspired to continue forward into the future, now unafraid to take risks and being excited about who I will become, is as different as day and night.